Hi, > b) Which OS's should be targeted? > (This gives info for a baseline to installation and OS > abstraction layers.) > > Given experience from some large open source projects such as Debian > GNU/Linux, targeting a multitude of OS'es can slow down the project > considerably - while at the same time creating a de-facto standard in > strength of its many platform options. > > ==> Is it sensible to start with the OSs [Windows 2K/XP, Linux <pick > libc version>, Solaris, Mac OS X]?
I suggest targeting a few more Unix platforms in order not to stick to Linux specialties to much. Maybe some of the *BSDs. Later refactoring the existing code to remove the Linux-dependent parts would be wasted time and effort, IMO. On the other side, I would not regard Solaris support as necessary from the start, unless it has to be done to achieve TCK compability. > c) Could we augment the proposed architecture in > (http://people.apache.org/~geirm/harmony.jpg) by introducing an OS > abstraction layer (OAL) to failitate porting? (Similar to the > strategy used for GCC porting.) > > Placing a quick sketch of this on > http://www.jguru.se/images/harmony_OAL.jpg ACK. I support this. Maybe APR can be used, maybe something self-made, that remains to be seen. But there may be some parts which not only depend on the OS but also heavily on the specific underlying platform, like optimizing JIT compiler. This problem is also very important to be addressed. Regards, Marco
